The Introduction highlights the main research topic, the research questions, the research methodology and the course of the argument. It argues that human rights form a central normative achievement of human moral and legal history. It highlights the egalitarian epistemic foundations of the human rights project. The assumption that all human beings have equal access to normative insights empowers human beings. The research in human rights as part of an inquiry into human moral and legal understanding is one of the most interesting projects of current science. Only an approach including perspectives from history, philosophy, legal theory, law and psychology and cognitive science can hope to provide sufficiently rich insights. The inquiry is also important because of different current attacks against human rights – for instance, from human rights history and cognitive science. The epistemology of human rights needs to address in particular the rich research in moral psychology, neuroscience and cognitive science on moral and legal phenomena. Human rights considered are not only found in international law, but also in constitutional and supranational law, in ethics and politics.